Pattani, Thailand - Suspected Muslim militants killed five civilians and injured six in two attacks in Thailand's troubled deep South, police said Tuesday.

Six men on motorcycles, believed to be separatist insurgents, opened fire with M-16 rifles on a house Monday night in the Thung Yang Daeng district of Pattani, 750 kilometres south of Bangkok, slaying three Thai Muslims, police said.

On the same night in nearby Narathiwat, assailants attacked a pickup on the outskirts of the city, killing two Thai Muslim men and injuring six others travelling in the vehicle.

Bangkok - Thai shares jumped nearly 6 per cent in value Monday on regional and European increases, despite fears of further political troubles.

Bangkok - Anti-government protestors marched through central Bangkok Monday on the eve of a verdict in a key corruption trial against their prime target, former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

The marchers with the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) listened to speakers accuse the current prime minister, Somchai Wongsawat, Thaksin's brother-in-law, of being a Thaksin puppet and demand that he stand down. They also poured scorn on Somchai's promise of a fair investigation into police violence during a protest this month.

Bangkok - Former Thai prime minister Samak Sundaravej, who was forced out of office last month by a court ruling, said Saturday that he has cancer.

The rotund, outspoken Samak, 73, said that after the court ruling, abdominal pains prompted him to seek medical treatment and doctors discovered he has liver cancer, he told a local television programme.

An operation to alleviate the cancer had gone well, he said.